


walk me home | heavy is the crown

by greywardenblue



Category: October Daye Series - Seanan McGuire
Genre: F/M, Non-Explicit Sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-20
Updated: 2019-07-22
Packaged: 2020-07-09 07:17:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 8,570
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19883749
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/greywardenblue/pseuds/greywardenblue
Summary: An alternate ending to An Artificial Night where October picks five seconds of bravery over denial, and things go from there.





	1. Side A

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Idril_Celebrindal](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Idril_Celebrindal/gifts).



> Walk me home in the dead of night  
> I can't be alone with all that's on my mind, mhm  
> So say you'll stay with me tonight  
> 'Cause there is so much wrong going on outside  
> \- Walk Me Home - P!nk

_ “He locked the roads after he took you. No one got in, no one got out.” Tybalt kept looking at me with that same blank expression. _

I looked back at him, determined to see through the carefully crafted emptiness. Making an effort to be unreadable meant making an effort to conceal something. If he was feeling the usual annoyance or even amusement he usually did in my presence, then why bother hiding it? The thought was gnawing at me and wouldn’t leave my head.

I held May’s cloak close around my body, uncomfortably aware that it was the only thing separating me from nakedness. My mind was still fuzzy, like the earlier fog on my memories, my identity hadn’t quite lifted. It felt almost like being drunk, and the last time I was drunk, Tybalt cradled me safely in his arms even with the freezing darkness around us. With that memory came the other one, the one I would have loved to forget, the memory of begging him to wake up the last time we travelled the shadows.

Strongest of all was a much more recent moment, of being large and fierce and angry and yet melting at his touch. Somewhere between the snake and the burning sword, I felt safe and secure. May and Connor and the Luidaeg and my friends all saved me from Blind Michael when I turned into the naked knight, but there was another moment before that, a fleeting moment when I didn’t belong to him.

“Being a lioness was kind of fun,” I said.

Tybalt smirked, the emotionless mask slipping away for a moment. He took a small step closer, his body leaning towards mine.

“You’d make a stunning cat,” he said.

I didn’t think. That’s the only way I can explain what came next, that somehow, for just a few seconds, my heart overtook my fuzzy brain and my limbs acted before I could command them to stop.

My leg moved forward, and with one of my hands holding the cloak still closed around my body, the other one reached up to pull him even closer and close the distance between us.

If he had pushed me away like I expected, that would have been it. A foolish moment I could blame on trauma, on impulses, on anything in the world, and we could have carried on and forget about it. Instead, his arms closed around my body, his body against mine, and he kissed me back with so much need that I was glad he was holding me upright.

We kissed like in the movies, like the moment when Elizabeth and Darcy dance together and the room is full of people but as long as they look at each other, they are the only ones the camera sees. There was no room for thinking about the consequences or our relationship or our bickering or how he ignored me for weeks after what happened with Alex. There was only room for his lips against mine and his hands on my waist, only separated from my skin by one cloak that almost felt like it wasn’t there.

In the movie I watched on my couch when I was still miserable and rejecting or being rejected by everyone who ever knew me, the camera turns, Elizabeth curtsies, and suddenly she’s standing in a line of people again.

In reality, we have the Luidaeg.

“Hey, lovebirds! Stop making out and put your disguises on! You don’t want me to go over there!”

We parted like lightning struck between us - or at least our heads did. Tybalt’s hands were still on my waist, and it felt like another eternity passed before he pulled them back. He glared at someone behind me, and when I turned, I saw Connor standing there, shellshocked. I instantly felt guilty, and before I could examine that feeling, he cleared his throat.

“Toby, May, Luna wanted me to inform you that you’ll be riding back to Shadowed Hills with us. Sylvester wants to see you.” He looked at me, but he looked like it was difficult for him to meet my eyes. Strangely, he wasn’t alone in that. “Toby, can I see you for a second?”

I said yes. What else was I supposed to say?

Connor asked me if I was okay, and I said yes to that too, even though it couldn’t have been further from the truth. I think that’s why I kissed Tybalt, to get some control back over myself, which felt ironic given how little control I felt when it happened. But if my heart overrules my common sense, that is still me fighting myself, not somebody else.

It helped, but only while Tybalt was holding me. Once his hand disappeared from my waist, my vision tried to fragment again. I felt the stains beneath my skin again, and I had the urge to scratch at my body until I could get them out.

\---

_ He isn’t letting go that easily _ .

The Luidaeg’s remark rattled around in my head as I sat between Tybalt and Connor on the bus. Part of me wanted to ask what happened while I was away, how the kids that I already brought home were doing. A larger part of me couldn’t handle looking at either of them, so closing my eyes and escaping into the world of dreams seemed like the better option.

I was so busy not looking at Tybalt that I didn’t notice he was gone until we reached the knowe. All that was left was a jacket smelling faintly of pennyroyal.

\---

_ I have to. He’s in my head, May. I can feel him. I can almost hear him, sometimes. _

\---

I didn’t want to be alone after Blind Michael, and while two asshole cats, a walking rosebush and my own Fetch wasn’t the company I would have chosen before the pond, I was quietly thankful for them.

And yet, suddenly sharing living space with a person who is definitely not me but has most of my memories has been… strange. The thing about someone who’s not you having all your memories is that they know everything that happened to you, but from a slightly different perspective. Getting used to that was honestly harder than getting over the whole death omen thing.

There were a lot of things I’ve been working hard to ignore, and I was desperately hoping May wouldn’t suddenly bring them up. She had been great about it so far, but every time a silence fell between us, I feared the next words out of her mouth.

(I still remembered her introduction to me, and how it touched on two of my weak points effortlessly.)

After all of that, I was surprised at how lost I felt the first time May said she’d be out all night doing whatever she was doing. I wasn’t sure how my Fetch who had only existed for a few months had a better social life than I did, but I didn’t push. If nothing else, I’d be invited to Karen’s upcoming birthday party - and given how my last girls’ night out ended, maybe it was better to wait longer before another one.

I spent a few hours wandering around the apartment before I decided to take a walk, all the way to the nearest shop that might be open and selling ice cream at 3am, that point in the night that isn’t quite too late and isn’t quite too early, at least to the humans of the city. On the way home I passed a playground, so I sat on the empty swing set and ate it. This was something I used to do a lot in another life, a life that belonged to Devin and to Home, usually in the company of my housemates. That was a bitter thought, but the sweetness of the ice cream made up for it.

I heard quiet music through an open window despite the hour. Once the ice cream was gone, I found myself singing along under my breath.

“Opened up his little heart, unlocked the lock that kept it dark, and read a written warning saying ‘I’m still mourning over ghosts, over ghosts, over ghosts, over ghosts that broke my heart before I met you’...”

I let my thoughts wander free, and he stepped out of the shadows as if he had been summoned by them.

“I didn’t realise you’ve taken up busking in your free time. I would have come out sooner to support you.” He made a show of looking around on the ground beneath the swings. “Where am I supposed to throw the coins? And the flowers?”

I turned my head away and ignored him. He deserved it, a voice in the back of my mind insisted, although it couldn’t give a reason why. I decided I didn’t need one.

“After it was done when there was nothing left to be, turned out I’d been following him and he’d been following me, after it was done after it was over we were just two lovers crying on each other’s shoulder… Lover, please do not fall to your knees--”

He caught me from behind, and my voice stopped even as the faint music went on. ( _ It’s not like I believe in everlasting love _ .) His hands held the chains of the swing, not touching me at all, and I was wearing jeans and a leather jacket with a T-shirt under it that were both thicker than a cloak. The feeling of his grip on my waist was only a memory, and I rejected it.

The swing was just high enough when he stopped me that my feet didn’t quite touch the ground. His scent embraced me even surer than the jacket did.

“What do you want?” I tried to keep my voice steady, and so far I was succeeding. He let go of me - the swing - and the momentum brought me forward, then back.

“I was called by your song, of course,” he said with a smirk on his face. “When a beautiful lady sings of her sorrows, a gentleman must answer.”

That was closer to the Tybalt I used to know, the familiar one who harassed me in dark alleys about the clothes I was wearing, the gauzy blouse or the belt-short skirt I’d never planned to have him see me in. The one who would tease me with words he’d never mean, and make me blush with them anyway. I was thankful for the dark, although I was certain that I couldn’t fool pureblood Cait Sidhe eyes. 

“Gentleman is the last thing I’d call you, Tybalt. And besides, didn’t you say I’d never have to make myself beautiful for you?”  _ You’ll never win my heart. _ It might have been his only honest sentence among his compliments, and I didn’t want to think about why it ached. “Just tell me what you’re really here for.”

He placed a hand to his heart like I wounded him, but he must have seen on my face that I wasn’t buying it. “We have unsettled debts,” he reminded me as he walked around the swing and stood in front of me. “And I went to all that trouble to help free you. Then I heard you made the journey back, and returned victorious. Is it so strange that I would like to see the woman who has defeated the terror of children everywhere?”

I frowned. “Is that what this is about? Look, Tybalt. I brought your kids home because I owed you”  _ not that I wouldn’t have done it anyway _ “and  _ you _ were the one who insisted that I did my job so well that now you owed me. You helped save me from Blind Michael, so as far as I’m concerned, we are even.” 

Maybe that wasn’t quite the official way to handle debts, but I didn’t care. When did I start not caring? When I gave him the hope chest, having a debt between us in either direction was a necessary evil, and one that weighed on me heavily. Not counting our mutual nice deeds was setting a precedent I wasn’t sure I was ready for. But hadn’t we already started it, back in Tamed Lightning?

Laura Marling was still on in the background, but her once comforting songs were now irritating me.  _ If I’m trying to fuck up my own life, then until I figure out why, I think it’s best you keep your distance, lest I fall in love _ …

“Is that what you want this to be about?” he asked. I tried to start swinging again, but he stood in my way and grabbed the chains. This time, he was leaning over me. “Can’t you think of anything else we should discuss?”

_ Oh _ , I thought.  _ Fuck _ .

My heart started beating faster, and I had no idea if he could hear it. I never knew just how good the hearing of the Cait Sidhe was, but it was sure better than mine.

“What else is there?” I asked meekly. I would die if he said it, I thought. But I would die sooner if I had to say it myself. Maybe he would dance around it like he always did, and I could pretend I had no idea what he meant, and things would be fine.

“You kissed me,” he said.

Or maybe not. It was a naive hope, that things would ever be fine.

Obviously, I didn’t die, but it was a close one.

“It was an impulsive moment,” I said dismissively. I had practiced this, and most of it was true, and it still sounded false to my own ears. “I could still feel Blind Michael’s hooks in me, and I needed something… someone… to help me forget. You just happened to be there, and conveniently not married.”

It sounded cruel, but no crueler than the things he had said to me over the years. More than that, it was necessary. It was the only way to kill whatever this was before it could get out of hand.

I waited for him to pull away, and he did. After a few long moments he let go of the chains and took a step back, looking at me with that same blank expression. This time, my head was too clear to wonder what he was hiding. The thing about answers is, once you get them, you can’t give them back.

“I see.” For a moment, I was sad that he believed me. For a moment, I wished he would pull me out of the swing into his arms and kiss me again. But I knew he never would. Kings of Cats didn’t fall for changeling knights who played detective on their days off.

There was a silence between us again, and I searched desperately for something sarcastic to say.

“I should be going home. May must be wondering what’s taking so long.” That wasn’t sarcastic. It was, however, a straight-up lie, but Tybalt didn’t need to do know that.

He stepped out of the way to let me get up from the swing.

“The Lady Fetch lives with you now?” he asked.

The question annoyed me a bit, mostly because I knew for a fact that Raj had mentioned it to him already. “Yes,” I said. “Don’t tell me you haven’t seen her since I came back.” I liked to think May would have mentioned it if he had, but I had been avoiding any mention of Tybalt so passionately that maybe she wouldn’t have.

I started walking in the direction of my apartment, but didn’t signal the end of the conversation. Tybalt took that as a sign to follow, and I didn’t stop him.

“I haven’t.”

“I thought you were friends now.”

Tybalt rolled his eyes. “And from your tone, I can imagine how happy that assumption makes you.” He looked at me curiously. “Would you be offended, if I said we were friends?”

I shrugged my shoulder, but it wasn’t very convincing. Would I be offended, if he made friends with someone who had all my memories and yet wasn’t me, when he never bothered making friends with me? Now, why would he even think that? “No. You’re both adults, and it’s none of my business.”

Tybalt hummed, and for a short while we walked in silence. I wondered if he would follow me all the way home, like I claimed he did last time when Sylvester asked. The thought amused and terrified me at the same time.

“Raj is rather fond of you,” he said finally. “He is planning to gather our kittens for a movie night at your place. He is already speaking to the respective parents. I did tell him he should have started by asking you, but he seems to believe it’s unnecessary.”

That surprised me. “He didn’t tell me he was doing that. They can come over if they want, I suppose. May and I can buy snacks.”

Tybalt wasn’t looking at me, and I had the strange feeling that I failed to read between the lines and missed some unspoken question. I replayed our conversation in my head, trying to figure it out. Suddenly I had it, and I knew exactly what I wanted the answer to be, but I couldn’t bring myself to say it.

“Are you offended, that he’s fond of me?” I said instead. That was as close to it as I dared, and I hoped that he would hear the answer anyway.

Tybalt laughed. “You have offended me many times, little fish, but it takes more than that. You have nothing to worry about this time.”

I frowned at the nickname, but somehow it didn’t sting as much as it used to. It might have been because this tone was different, almost… affectionate? It reminded me of the look on his face right after we pulled back from the kiss, and I didn’t like it. (I liked it too much.)

The first raindrop fell on my hand before I could say anything, quickly followed by many others. Tybalt looked up and made a face.

“We should take the shadows,” he said, and he was already reaching out to put his arms around me. I stepped away quickly, dancing out of his reach.

“Absolutely not!” I snapped, louder than I meant to. He looked at me in surprise. “You’re free to leave if you don’t like the rain, but I’m walking. I’m almost home.”

I hurried forward, and after a moment I heard his footsteps behind me. The fact that I could hear him meant that he wanted me to know he was following. I slowed down a little, and he took that as a sign to catch up to me and walk beside me again.

By the time we reached home, the rain was pouring and I almost regretted turning down his offer, but I had several reasons to do so. Besides, it didn’t matter anymore.

He stood and covered me from the rain while I fished my keys out and opened the door. That was what really got me. “Well, this is me,” I said lamely, my hand on the door handle.

“May will be horrified at your appearance, I imagine.”

“I do hope you mean the fact that I am soaked, and this isn’t another jab at my clothes.”

He laughed, and my heart jumped. “I do mean the fact that you are soaked.”

So was he, and yet he’d stayed with me in the rain when he could have stepped into the shadows and return to Court easily. He was still standing in my doorway, lingering when he could have ended the conversation so many times.

“Do you want to come in?” The question slipped out before I could stop it. I remembered the last time I lost control over my mouth and limbs, and I felt my face flushing red. I told myself I just didn’t want all that water to turn to ice on his way home. That sounded uncomfortable.

He looked surprised at the question, but he nodded clearly. I pushed the door open and he followed me inside.

“May--”

“May isn’t home,” I interrupted whatever he was going to say, exposing my earlier lie. “She said she’d be out all night, so… I guess she’ll be home sometime in the morning.” I took my wet jacket off and hung it. “It’s just me and the cats,” I added, and it was true, in more ways than one.

Tybalt didn’t answer. He looked around my apartment, and I realised I had no idea where to go from here. I invited him in. Now what?

The voice in the back of my head suggested a few things to do when I’m alone with a hot guy in my apartment, and it had evidence to support its argument - such as Tybalt’s leather pants from the last time he followed me home, and yes, the eagerness he kissed me back with when I was wearing nothing but May’s cloak. Like he never wanted to let go of me again.

_ Lost and gone for so long, and now she’s come back to us, now she’s come back to  _ me _ … _

My breath caught as the memory from the blood hit me, and Tybalt looked up to see me staring at him. He said nothing, just raised an eyebrow and smirked. I looked away.

“I had the opportunity to look at your bookshelf last time,” he said finally. “You seem to have a fondness for writers from the other side of the ocean.”

I glared. “Terry Pratchett is a genius. And why do I have to defend my reading choices, anyway?”

He raised his hands in a defensive move. “I wasn’t attacking you. I was making conversation.” He sauntered towards me as he spoke until he was right in front of me. It took everything in me not to reach out and pull him closer.

He put his hands down, and by that time he was so close that I could almost feel them brushing my sides. I felt my body leaning forward towards his without thinking about it, like I was being pulled on a string. But there was no string this time, no compulsion, no wounds from the assassin he’d sent after me. For the first time in recent memory, it was just me, the man I desperately wanted, and my cursed common sense that told me I couldn’t have him.

Wait a second. Since when did I listen to common sense, of all things? The Toby who went after Blind Michael three times sure as hell wasn’t driven by common sense.

In the end, I don’t know if it was him or me who moved first. We met halfway, and when his arms closed around me, it felt right. Hadn’t I been wearing the jacket that smelled like him for months? It was a comfort, but it could never live up to the original.

Part of me was aware of being gently guided towards my bedroom, and that wretched common sense thing tried to stop me again. I told common sense where to put its objections. I deserved this, and it felt right, even if it would come crashing down on me the next day. It certainly wasn’t the stupidest thing I’d done in my life, or even this month.

Part of me was also aware of my cats existing, but Tybalt closed the bedroom door in their face. He pulled off my T-shirt without hesitation and went for my bra while I struggled with the zippers on my jeans. The back of my legs hit the frame of the bed and he made me sit down. I expected him to push me back and climb over me, but instead he knelt down between my legs.

I let out a small laugh as I remembered the song from the playground. "Lover, please don't fall to your knees…" I breathed more than whispered, and I shivered when his lips touched my thigh.

_ It's not like I believe in everlasting love. _

\---

It was far too early to go to bed -- to sleep, at least. We didn't sleep for a long time. I called his name a few dozen times, and he called me beautiful in return. His hands brushed the marks of iron bullets and claw-marks and other injuries on my skin, and he still called me beautiful. I should have figured cats found scars sexy, but I never asked. At one point, I thought he murmured _Toby, my_ _Toby_ into my skin, but I was a little too busy to listen closely.

I drifted off to sleep with his arm around my waist and his fingers in my hair, our legs tangled together, and everything was right in the world.

\---

I woke to an empty bed, and it took me a while to realise why that disappointed me. The fact that I was naked helped me remember what happened faster. I groaned, already cursing my stupidity. Of course he’d be gone. Of course.

I glanced at the clock to confirm that it was 8am, which meant I only slept a couple of hours. I yearned to sleep more, but after the realisation that Tybalt left, I also just really wanted to take a shower. I put on a bathrobe and left my bedroom. May must have got home while I was sleeping, because I could hear her opening cabinets in the kitchen.

Wait a second. That didn’t sound like May’s voice. I approached the kitchen slowly and carefully until I could make out the words.

“It is a severe crime to lie to your King, you know. With that in mind, would you like to revise your statement?”

One of the cats meowed in response, and I stifled a laugh. Tybalt was in my kitchen, feeding my cats. No - the King of Cats was in my kitchen, feeding his subjects who just happened to live with me until they decided I was too much trouble. I wouldn’t have dared refer to myself as a cat owner in Tybalt’s presence. A cat companion, at most. A cat friend, maybe.

“Did you find everything?”

He didn’t turn at my voice, but then again, he must have heard I was coming long before I spoke. If he wanted, he could have turned much sooner. He was wearing the clothes he wore before we-- Well, it was only a few hours ago, anyway.

“Your companions can be rather helpful in giving directions, when it comes to their own breakfast.” Finally he turned around, and I stopped when I saw what he was holding in his hand.

“Oh, come on.”

“October.”

“No! Stop that look! You don’t get to come into my house and judge my belongings! You already did it with the books!

Tybalt laughed and turned the mug around. “I’m allergic to stupidity - I break out in sarcasm,” he read. I blushed. “A fitting sentiment. This one, though…” He reached into my cabinet. I stepped forward to catch his hand, but he was both faster and taller than me. “Do not leave drinks unattended - the cat is a jerk. You are lucky your housemates can’t read.”

“They know they are jerks,” I protested, swiping my mugs back from him. “You’re a cat, too, and  _ you _ know you’re a jerk.”

“Do I now?” He stepped up close behind me as I stretched to reach the top shelf of the cabinet, his hands resting on my waist. I shivered. He wasn’t allowed to do that when only a few hours passed since those hands touched me everywhere, and now he was in my kitchen feeding my cats and making fun of my mugs.

“Cliff used to buy them for me,” I said suddenly, and stubbornly, I wanted him to pull his hands back. When he didn’t react, I pressed on. “Anniversaries, birthdays, or just because he saw one and liked it. A funny mug for everything. Not these ones, of course. After I disappeared and he moved houses and remarried, well… he threw my stuff out, or donated it, or I have no idea what. I didn’t get the mugs back.” So I bought new ones, from the ‘making fun of coffee addiction’ genre. There was another genre Cliff used to buy me mugs from, the ‘awesome mom’ one, but I wasn’t touching that.

Tybalt kissed my shoulder through the robe.

“You must think I had it coming,” I said sullenly, bracing myself for his agreement. “What did the changeling girl with the dead father expect, when she fell for a human?” It was a whisper I heard a lot after I returned to Faerie. Not from my friends of course, but enough times.

Tybalt laughed bitterly. “Oh, the dreaded question! ‘What do you expect to happen?’ All my friends asked me that when I married a human.” If I had still been holding a mug, I would have dropped it at that point. “I told them I expected to be happy,” he said quietly, his arms tightening around me. “And I was. We were. The fact that it all ended sooner than I expected and left me in misery didn’t change that.”

I turned around to face him, but he pushed me back against the counter. He kissed me and I let him, and I thought of the ghosts from the song. There were ghosts between us, and they weren’t going away until we addressed them. Maybe now that we did, they would rest.

“May is coming,” Tybalt murmured into my hair. I was so wrapped up in his scent and his warmth, his words only confused me.

“It’s November,” I said.

Tybalt laughed in my ear and a key turned in the door. He made no attempt to move, and that left me trapped between him and the counter even as I realised what was happening and tried desperately to step away from him and pretend… pretend something.

May stopped in the door and stared at us.

“Am I interrupting?” she asked.

“Yes,” Tybalt said before I could find my voice.

May closed her eyes and shook her head. “Okay! I’ll be in my room, sleeping, with earplugs in. You kids have fun.” She escaped, taking the cats and Spike with her.

I waited until she was gone before I mumbled, “We already did.”

Tybalt laughed again and kissed me, and I wondered why I denied myself this. Part of me remembered wondering about Raj and Helen and interracial dating with the Cait Sidhe, and I remembered Raj’s father calling me a hussy, and I knew that if we decided to go forward with whatever this was, it was not going to be a smooth ride. But another part of me felt like I deserved to have this before worrying about the rest, and for the first time in such a long time, I listened to it.

“I got up to take a shower, you know,” I said. 

“Cats and water don’t mix well,” Tybalt said.

I raised an eyebrow. “Well, you don’t _ have  _ to come…”

He caught my hand and kissed it. “I didn’t say that.”

I closed my fingers around his and lead him to toward the bathroom. He followed.


	2. Side B

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> But heavy is the crown that’s always hidden  
> Tender is the heart you never see  
> Hard and fast shines the grin that we flash, but  
> There’s a vulnerable stripe or two on me  
> Cheshire Kitten - S.J. Tucker

Everyone has their own little corner at Court where they can hide if they wish to, but normally, sleeping is communal. Kings and Princes and Queens and Princesses all sleep in one room with their people, letting the vulnerable curl up against them and the kittens crawl all over them. The point is that their monarch is still a cat, a leader who will protect them from night terrors both imagined and real.

That’s how Tybalt did it, anyway, and he knew it’s how Hermeline did it, too. It was never how their father did it, of course.

After the kittens came home and October went back, his Prince slept curled up against his back every time he could. He didn’t know if that was supposed to be for his comfort or the boy’s.

\---

Being a King of Cats - the kind of King he wanted to be, not the kind of King his father was - had always been like walking a tightrope in front of a breathless audience where even those who don’t truly loathe you sometimes wish you’d fall, just so they can see what happens. He needed to look strong to his potential challengers, but he couldn’t terrify the vulnerable who depended on him.

Raj couldn’t grow up thinking his King was weak - that would have been dangerous and eventually fatal for both of them. But lying to him about what being a King is like would have been a disservice, too. Telling Raj a King never asked for help, a King never faltered, would have been a disservice.

\---

“She lead us through the plains all the way home. We had to walk  _ so _ much,” one said.

“Raj made us carry the Hob girl,” two said.

“We were in a car and sped down the hill and threw things out the window,” three said.

“Is that so?” Tybalt ruffled the little boy’s hair. “I’m sure you were very brave, Ben.”

“She grabbed me and pulled me into the briar,” Raj said later, leaning against his side. “She said she was your friend, then that you were enemies who just haven’t killed each other yet.”

Tybalt snorted. “That’s what she said?”

Raj shrugged. “She looked nine at best, so it was kind of funny. Then she started talking about the Luidaeg, like that’s just something one does. She said she let the sea witch cast a spell on her.”

“She does that,” Tybalt confirmed.

They fell silent again, until Raj whispered. “I like her.”

There was a lot in that admission that Tybalt could hear behind the words. There was the worry, of course, but there was also defiance, the unspoken challenge that his father wasn’t right when he grumbled about October and criticised Tybalt for seeking or offering her help. Tybalt heard all of it and didn’t say anything. He was Raj’s King, but Samson was his father. That was another tightrope, and Tybalt had always preferred the theatre to the circus.

“The roads are closed, aren’t they?” Raj said after a while.

“All the ones that are usually open to us, yes.”

“Even the shadows? Even to you?”

Tybalt sighed. “Even to me. My Prince, if I could have used the shadows to go after you, don’t you think I would have found you myself in the first place?”

Raj was quiet. That meant either that he was thinking, or that he was gathering courage to say something. Suddenly, Tybalt didn’t like the silence.

“But there must be a road that children can take, so they can get to Him. I’m small enough. The sea witch must know.”

“Out of the question,” Tybalt hissed.

“But--”

He slapped the boy lightly - a warning, not a punishment. “You will not play hero and be lost to us. This is the end of the conversation. Get it out of your head.”

\---

“ _ I thought I sent you to die. After what you told me, with your Fetch appearing . . . I thought that you were going to die because of what I asked you to do _ .”

She came back, but now she was gone again. She was right there and he didn’t hold her back. So how was this not his fault?

\---

_ Toby, don’t be dead, don’t be dead _ .

_ Dammit, Tybalt, wake up! You can’t die! I won’t  _ let _ you! _

He’d played with her hair while he explained why he didn’t stay down. He half-expected her to flinch away from his hands, and he would have pulled back. She didn’t.

_ This isn’t fair. _

_ \--- _

Tybalt had many curious friends over the years. If anyone thought he ever kept away from the Divided Courts or even the humans, they couldn’t have been paying much attention. Still, making friends with the Fetch of a woman he didn’t want to die was new.

He wasn’t sure ‘friends’ was a right word. May looked like October, and yet no idiot who had spent more than a few hours in the company of the changeling woman would have mixed them up. That was strange enough, but May had October’s memories, too. She brought up past slights and called him out on them in October’s name, something the other woman never would have done for herself.

She had the same memories and the same face, but a very different personality, and a nonexistent filter. It was refreshing, in a way. She made the necessary company of October’s other friends easier to bear.

The boy, Quentin, was constantly uptight and argued with Raj until the Luidaeg snapped at them and Tybalt was forced to send the Prince home. And the selkie -- well, the less is said about the selkie, the better.

Yet, when October shifted from burning sword to half-fae woman in their arms, he knew it had been worth it.

\--

Tybalt stayed on the sidelines while she got her bearings, as he always did, but his eyes would not leave her.

“I’m standing right here,” May said, amusement clear in her voice.

“You’d been here for the last month,” he said, and he didn’t need to finish the sentence. But October had been gone, October was lost again, and he didn’t know if she’d be found this time. And now she was back.

Now she was back, and she was walking straight towards them, wearing nothing but a cloak she had to fight to keep closed around her body.

“Act normal,” May stage-whispered into his ear. Tybalt resisted the urge to swat at her.

“You two look awfully cozy,” October said.

Tybalt kept his face carefully neutral, his voice carefully flat. It took effort, but it was the only way to keep his composure. Toby might have let him played with her hair after he came back from the dead, but that didn’t mean she would let him hold her like he wanted. They were barely even friends.

“Being a lioness was kind of fun,” she said, and that was all the permission he needed to risk a smile.

He took a step closer, leaning towards her. “You’d make a stunning cat,” he said earnestly, and he wished that it could be true. It would have made things so much easier. (Or maybe not. Their distance wasn’t all about their Courts.)

Toby lurched forward to kiss him, and for a moment he thought he was dreaming, because this was exactly what he’d been wishing to do since May pulled October off the horse. But even in a dream, especially in a dream, he would have kissed her back. In a dream, maybe he  _ had _ kissed her back. His hands gripped her waist and she felt solid, she felt  _ real _ .

When the Luidaeg shouted at them, his first instinct was to ignore her. She might have been a Firstborn, and one of the most powerful at that, but that’s just the way cats were… and kissing Toby was so much more exciting. His eyes followed Toby even as she pulled away, and he was seriously considering going in for another kiss when he noticed the selkie standing behind her. He gave the other man his best glare, his hands still on October’s waist, but it didn’t stop her from walking away.

“You’re never going to wash your mouth again, are you?”

He had forgotten May was still there. If the woman was surprised by the kiss, she had gotten over it by the time Tybalt remembered her presence, and now she was grinning.

“I’m not going to grace that with an answer.”

May shrugged. “Suit yourself. In any case, I’m rooting for you.”

That was good to know.

\--

October took her time crafting her illusions, then took the selkie by the arm and stayed with him until they got on the bus. They sat down together, and Tybalt took the third seat on the other side of October despite Connor’s glares.

She hadn’t looked at him since the kiss. When she sat down next to him, she leant back in her seat and closed her eyes.

She didn’t look at him, but when she fell asleep, her head leant against his shoulder.

\--

When Tybalt heard October went back to face Blind Michael for the third time, he excused himself and sat on a nearby roof for an hour, watching the city beneath him. He faintly remembered a day in another life, a day when he sat with September who was already married, a day when he joked about marrying one of her brothers. He had written off Sylvester because he could not deal with his potential husband wearing his muddy boots to bed or trimming his fingernails with a sword. September had laughed at his joke, but her response was more serious.

_ I hope for your sake that you’ll never love a hero, Rand.  _

_ Why say that,  _ he had asked.

_ They will leave you with a broken heart while they run off to save someone else. They never remember to save themselves. _

When he came back, he gave Raj the rest of the night off. He never made any suggestions about how the Prince should spend his freetime, but when Raj came back in the morning and complained about October’s rose goblin, he knew it worked.

\--

He wasn’t following October, or at least not more than usual. He didn’t keep a constant eye on her apartment. But if he passed on the street several times a day even when he had no business in the area, well…. it was his right as a cat to walk where he pleased, and it was his duty as a King to check on his subjects. October lived with two of them.

“You could just go and talk to her,” Raj murmured under his breath one day.

“What was that, Raj?” Tybalt asked lightly, giving him a chance to reconsider.

Raj sighed. For a moment, it seemed like he wasn’t going to say anything. Then he turned around and looked him in the eye. “I  _ said  _ you should just go and talk to October.”

Tybalt blinked in surprise, then let out a laugh. He didn’t actually expect Raj to commit to that. “Maybe you should focus on your own lady, my Prince,” he said teasingly.

That worked. Raj frowned and turned away, and Tybalt shook his head. He found it ironic, that they were both Cait Sidhe royalty seeking the attention of Divided Court changelings who their people would never find suitable for a monarch. Tybalt had already shot down some of Samson’s complaints over Raj’s girlfriend, but at the end of the day, the other man was the boy’s father and he was not. And yet, he was the King and Raj was his Prince, the one who would have to follow him on the throne. When they disagreed, a compromise wasn’t always easy to find.

Raj was still a young Prince with many years before he would have to take the throne, and that meant he had certain freedoms Tybalt did not. A King would always have to put his people first, not go off worrying about heroic knights who put themselves in danger every second day.

It was easier to blame it on his duties, and not think about the fact that she hadn’t looked at him since the kiss. Had she regretted it already?

_ \-- _

Ironically, he did have legitimate business in the area when he next saw her. A mother had given birth in a storage unit a couple of weeks ago, and when the owners found out, they gathered the kittens in a bag and left them in the trash. Tybalt didn’t meet the humans themselves, which was probably for the best. On his way to pick up the mother and reunite the family at Court, he saw October passing in the street, and once he was sure his people were safe and adjusting to their new temporary home, he walked around the place he’d seen her, hoping she would still be around.

He needed the distraction, and he needed to see her again. And maybe, just maybe he was hoping for another kiss, too.

October was sitting on the swing set in the empty playground and singing. Tybalt walked up behind her without making a sound. Habits were hard to break.

“I’m still mourning over ghosts, over ghosts, over ghosts, over ghosts that broke my heart before I met you...”

Tybalt made a face, hesitating for a moment. Toby couldn’t have known, but that song was equal to a punch in the gut. He shook it off and forced a smile as he stepped closer.

She was wearing her human face, jeans, a plain black top and… his jacket. That was still enough to turn the smile into a genuine one.

“I didn’t realise you’ve taken up busking in your free time. I would have come out sooner to support you.” And oh, he would have listened to her quietly sing for the rest of his life. The intensity of the sudden thought scared him. “Where am I supposed to throw the coins? And the flowers?”

October turned her head away, and Tybalt’s heart sank. But he would not be ignored so easily. He stepped around the swing and grabbed the chains to pull her to a stop, and she stopped singing with a surprised gasp.

“What do you want?”

He had her attention, so he let go. “I was called by your song, of course. When a beautiful lady sings of her sorrows, a gentleman must answer.” 

“Gentleman is the last thing I’d call you, Tybalt. And besides, didn’t you say I’d never have to make myself beautiful for you?” 

Tybalt wanted to laugh. Of course he said that. He said it because she was just as beautiful to him in her jeans and shirt than in an expensive dress, maybe even more beautiful because this was something she chose, and it wasn’t forced upon her by an entitled pureblood. She never had to make an effort to make him find her beautiful, because he did, even with the human mask she was wearing. He would have loved to see her without it, but it was close enough to her true face that he could still appreciate it.

_ I wanted to see you _ . He wanted to say it, to see if it would make the frown on her face turn into a smile - but maybe it wouldn’t have. He feared he had lied to her, or dressed the truth up as a sarcastic lie, too many times to be believed now.

He barely remembered later what came out of his mouth instead. Something about debts that he wasn’t truly counting, something making light of her facing Blind Michael that would not reveal the agony he felt when he heard.

The confirmation that she didn’t care about the debt either encouraged him, surprising as it was after the whole drama with the hope chest where she spoke of a mutual hatred he didn’t feel. It might have been because she was a changeling who had often rejected the strict formality of the Courts, but he hoped it was something else, a statement about their changing relationship.

“Is that what you want this to be about?” he asked quietly. She tried to start swinging again - and likely ignore him again -, but he stopped her. He leant over her, close enough that she had to look at him. “Can’t you think of anything else we should discuss?”

“What else is there?” she asked, but he wasn’t going to let her ignore this.

“You kissed me.”

She tensed and avoided his eyes, and he waited for her answer. “It was an impulsive moment.” Tybalt froze. “I needed something… someone… to help me forget. You just happened to be there, and conveniently not married.”

He stayed completely still for several seconds, looking down at her even as she didn’t look at him. All the words were awful, but it was the last little comment, the implication that she might have gone for the other man instead if only he hadn’t been married, was what stung the most. He told himself she was lying, that she was doing the exact same thing he had done before to keep her at a distance, but he didn’t quite believe it.

He let go of the chains and stepped back. He would not let her know that she hurt him. “I see.”

October announced her intention to leave, and Tybalt nodded silently, giving her space to get up. And yet, when she started walking away from him, he called out the first thing that came to mind and moved to follow her.

“Raj is rather fond of you,” he said after a while. “ He is planning to gather our kittens for a movie night at your place. He is already speaking to the respective parents. I did tell him he should have started by asking you, but he seems to believe it’s unnecessary.”

“He didn’t tell me he was doing that. They can come over if they want, I suppose. May and I can buy snacks.”

Tybalt didn’t answer. Asking for an invitation when one wasn’t offered would have been desperate, and he would not be desperate. 

“We should take the shadows,” he said when the rain fall, and blinked in surprise when October recoiled from his offered hand and snapped at him.

“You’re free to leave if you don’t like the rain, but I’m walking,” she said, and hurried forward. He seriously considered leaving, if only because he really, really hated the rain. In the end, he moved to catch up with her anyway. What else was he supposed to do?

\---

When he started gently pushing October towards the bedroom, he fully expected her to stop him, and he would have been fine with it. Getting to kiss her was already more than he expected, and he was never going to get tired of it. Instead, he got to hold her in his arms as she cuddled close, skin-to-skin, and he breathed in her scent.  _ Toby,  _ my _ Toby. _ ..

“This feels nice,” she murmured, and he kissed the top of her head in response.

“It does.”

“No, I mean…” She frowned. “Obviously, this feels _ nice _ . But it’s so good to…” Her voice trailed off, and Tybalt held her close and didn’t push, no matter how curious he was. “I was so scared,” she said finally, and her voice cracked on the end of the sentence. “When I realised what he wanted from me, I was so scared. I’d given up on escaping, and then the light…”

“You saved everyone but yourself,” Tybalt murmured into her hair. “But you couldn’t have thought we’d leave you. There are too many people who love you, October. Don’t forget that.”

Toby was quiet for a while. “But I came back.”

Tybalt kissed her head again. “You came back.” _ You came back to me _ .

It wouldn’t be easy, to make any kind of relationship work besides his duties. But as long as she chose him, he knew they would work it out. Root and branch, just let her keep choosing him.

**Author's Note:**

> The songs in the background--  
> Ghosts and Old Stone by Laura Marling, from the album Alas, I Cannot Swim (2008). I recommend checking them out and reading the full lyrics.
> 
> An incomplete list of memories referenced from the October Daye series--  
> “The trousers fail to flatter, but the blouse is sufficiently gauzy.” (Tybalt - Rosemary and Rue)  
> “And why, my dear October, are you gowned so fetchingly? You don’t need to make yourself beautiful for me, you know; you’ll never win my heart. Although you’re welcome to keep trying, if you insist. Next time? Try wearing a corset.” (Tybalt - Rosemary and Rue)  
> “The skirt passes muster,” said Tybalt, finishing his survey. “I might have called it a ‘belt’ rather than a ‘skirt,’ but I suppose you have the right to name your own clothing.” (A Local Habitation)  
> All cats belong to their King. For the moment, I was more his than Blind Michael’s. (Toby - An Artificial Night)


End file.
